Board of Directors 2016

David J. Bernstein, Ph.D., President

Dr. David J. Bernstein is a Senior Study Director and senior evaluation specialist at Westat, an employee-owned social science research company based in Rockville, Maryland. Dr. Bernstein has over 30 years of professional experience in designing and conducting social science research related to performance measurement, evaluation, strategic planning, quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, and education research. He has offered consultation and technical assistance as both an internal and external evaluator working with U.S. federal government programs, a large full-service county, a large county-wide school district, and a major nonprofit service agency. He is a frequent chair, panelist, and discussant at professional evaluation conferences and trainings such as the annual American Evaluation Association (AEA) and Eastern Evaluation Research Society (EERS) conferences. He is a nationally recognized expert on the relationship between performance measurement and evaluation and the role of sponsors and stakeholders in evaluation, and has been published in peer reviewed professional journals on these topics. Dr. Bernstein is an inaugural member of AEA, Past Chair of the AEA Government Evaluation Topical Interest Group (TIG), Nonprofit and Foundation TIG, and the Graduate Student and New Evaluator TIG. He has served on several AEA task forces and committees, and has twice served as the Chair of the AEA Conference Local Arrangements Task Force. Dr. Bernstein is the recipient of the 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award from The George Washington University Trachtenberg School for Public Policy and Public Administration.

   

Nick Hart, Ph.D., President-Elect and Acting Treasurer
Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
@NickRHart

Dr. Nick Hart is the Policy and Research Director for the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking.  He previously worked as a Senior Program Examiner with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, focused on Social Security and Federal anti-poverty programs. During his professional career he has served in positions at all levels of government -- Federal, state, and local -- and worked on a wide range of issues including environmental, energy, welfare, disability, economic development, and criminal justice policies. Prior to joining OMB in 2009, Nick was an Economic Research Analyst with the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Nick completed a doctorate at The George Washington University's Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, with emphasis in program evaluation. Nick holds a Masters of Science in Environmental Science and a Masters of Public Affairs from Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and a Bachelor of Science from Truman State University.  Nick also serves on AEA's Evaluation Policy Task Force and the Board of the Eastern Evaluation Research Society.

Brian Yoder, Past-President
American Society for Engineering Education
@brianlyoder

Dr. Brian Yoder is Director of Assessment, Evaluation, and Institutional Research at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He oversees annual data collection for ASEE’s benchmark surveys of engineering schools, and leads research and evaluation of federally funded and industry funded projects in areas related to engineering education and STEM education. He served as Chair of AEA’s Government Evaluation Topical Interest Group. He spearheaded the Evaluators Visit Capitol Hill initiative, a collaboration between AEA’s Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF) and Washington Evaluators which organized and provided guidance to AEA members to visit the office of their congress person during the AEA conference in Washington, D.C. in 2013. Brian has been active in the Washington Evaluators for over five years and played a central role in its recent growth as a local affiliate of the American Evaluation Association.  

Stephanie Cabell, Secretary  

Stephanie Cabell has served as the staff lead for evaluation in the Bureau of Budget and Planning at the US Department of State since November 2006. Previously, she served for 17 years as a performance specialist at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. She was hired by the State Department in 2006 to help grow the Department’s then nascent efforts to implement programmatic evaluations as a performance management tool and as a vehicle to learn what’s working and not working in foreign affairs programming.  She was part of a team that drafted a Department-wide evaluation policy that was socialized among the Department’s 40+ bureaus and offices and eventually signed by the Deputy Secretary of State in February 2012.  She has served as the staff lead to organize the Department of State annual Evaluation Institute (conference) since 2009, the mission of which is to highlight effective practices and methods in foreign affairs evaluations and to be a forum to address enduring topics, such as how to evaluate “diplomacy” or how to implement frameworks for evidence-based budgeting and decision-making.

 

Robin Kelley has worked for over 15 years in a combination of community and academics endeavors. In academia, she has taught women’s health and human rights at Georgetown University and women’s health at George Washington University and at the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars. In the community, she has served as a program and evaluation consultant, program developer, program director and evaluator for community based mentoring and health organizations. The health organizations she has focused on vulnerable populations such as women, girls and those at high risk for HIV. She currently works with other organizations to help them build their capacity for evaluation services. She develops evaluation plans for over million dollar proposals and supervise staff and graduate students. She has the honor of serving as the Chair of the Membership Committee.

Giovanni Dazzo, Program Committee Chair
U.S. Department of State

Giovanni Dazzo serves as an evaluation specialist with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), where he advises staff and grantees on program design and evaluation principles. Prior to joining DRL in April 2015, he worked with Freedom House’s global rapid response funds, where he established systems to evaluate emergency financial assistance and urgent advocacy support for at-risk human rights activists. Prior to moving to Washington, DC, Giovanni worked in Italy and Cambodia, conducting applied research and program and policy evaluations for the European Commission, United Nations agencies, USAID and other bilateral donors, and international development banks. Giovanni holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and a master’s degree from Bocconi University’s School of Management in Milan. He also serves as a Program Co-Chair for the American Evaluation Association's Democracy and Governance Topical Interest Group. 

Melba Reed, Communications Committee Chair
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
@melbacreed 

Dr. Melba C. Reed has 10 years of experience evaluating federal and community-based programs across various disciplines including positive youth development, criminal justice, biomedical science, and environmental science.  Melba has been a Washington Evaluators member for over five years, and played a central role in obtaining nonprofit status for Washington Evaluators.